Graduation Date
Summer 2017
Document Type
Dissertation/Thesis
Program
Master of Arts degree with a major in Sociology
Committee Chair Name
Mary Virnoche
Committee Chair Affiliation
HSU Faculty or Staff
Second Committee Member Name
Jennifer Eichstedt
Second Committee Member Affiliation
HSU Faculty or Staff
Subject Categories
Sociology
Abstract
This thesis is based on eleven interviews with seven students enrolled in a social science master’s degree program at a small public university in the Western United States (University of the Northwest - UNW). My analysis details the differences in pathways and educational experiences between first- and continuing-generation students in this program. I found that first-generation, underrepresented, low-income (FGULI) students expressed greater difficulty fitting into graduate school, greater doubt about their ability to ‘do’ graduate school, less comfort interacting with faculty, and less ease with the concept of graduate school and with conceptualizing themselves as graduate students than continuing-generation students (CGSs). This research is important because the master’s level of graduate education is an understudied segment of higher education. Furthermore, FGULI students are more likely than continuing-generation students to choose to pursue a master’s degree instead of, or before, entering a doctoral program. Bourdieusien analyses explain this education gap as an outcome of group differences in social and cultural capital: the middle- to upper-class white male social and cultural capital that is more abundant among continuing-generation students provides “distinction” in higher education and related connections to direct pathways into doctoral education. This research points to programmatic policies and structures that will likely support the success of all master’s students, but particularly that of FGULI graduate students at this level.
Citation Style
ASA
Recommended Citation
Miles, Jennifer, "Aspirants and interlopers: First-generation, underrepresented, low-income master's students" (2017). Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects. 63.
https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/etd/63